Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi applauded Pakistan's efforts in the war against terrorism, but expressed concern to the Islamic nation's leader over nuclear proliferation, officials said.
Koizumi, who held private talks with Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, also said Japan would resume loans to the South Asian country which were suspended after Islamabad's 1998 nuclear tests. The two governments also issued their first-ever joint declaration on bilateral cooperation after 53 years of diplomatic ties, pledging to deepen and widen relations.
Yesterday, Koizumi left Pakistan for Luxembourg for talks with EU officials. Koizumi, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Luxembourg, was expected assert that the proposed lifting of the EU arms embargo on China would affect the security balance in East Asia.
Before leaving Pakistan yesterday, Koizumi praised the country's efforts in the war on terror. But he also "expressed concern over the spillover of nuclear technology."
It was unclear if Musharraf offered Koizumi new information gleaned from the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has confessed to supplying sensitive technology to countries including North Korea.
Koizumi said that he had told Musharraf that "Japan has been striving for elimination of nuclear weapons and for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
Japan -- the only country which has suffered nuclear attacks -- is a neighbor of North Korea and has been involved in six-nation talks, aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
The joint statement between the two nations said Japan would extend new loans to Pakistan worth ?16,400 million (US$156.5 million), mostly for fixing a canal system in eastern Punjab Province.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image